I first saw Vince Collins perform last summer on the Open Mic at Folk Club, and was delighted to hear his unique style of playing. Vince plays in a straightforward, driving manner, a style developed from playing for square dances in St. Anne's, Placentia Bay. I had only heard accordion music like that on old recordings, and at a fortunate chance to have a few tunes with Bobby Dear, an accordion player from Arnold's Cove. The guitar player accompanying Vince that night was his son Glen, an accomplished player with a blues, jazz and rock background. Vince and Glen Collins are both soft spoken and modest, and are perfectionists when it comes to music.

Vince was born and raised in St. Anne's on the west side of Placentia Bay. He started playing the accordion at age 13. He recalls that the accordion was always sitting on the table in the parlor, so everybody in the family had the opportunity to play. "Women used to play, and young girls," Vince relates. "They could all play the accordion. There were tons of good players around so everyone would get a chance at playing for the dances." He frequently played for the square dances, especially in the 1950's. One set of dances would last about an hour and a half, and Vince often played for two sets in a row, so he could be there for three or four hours of steady playing. "Of course, I'd take off with a girl then. Later on someone would come along and say 'Vince how about another set?' I'd go back in with a flask poked in my pocket. That's the way it was all around the bays, in all the outports." Vince left St. Anne's shortly before it was officially resettled and moved to Placentia. He later moved to St. John's, where he met and married Dorothy Lawlor and settled down.

Glen grew up in St. John's and started to play the guitar as a young boy, more with aspirations of becoming a rock star than learning old time Newfoundland music. After playing the club scene in St. John's, he went on to study jazz guitar in Nova Scotia at St. Francis Xavier University, and played around the Maritimes in a rock band called "Boys Gone Wild." He later toured with Damnhait Doyle and is now an active member of the St. John's music scene. He recently recorded several guitar tracks for Peter Narvaez's latest album, Some Good Blues. Like many people with music in the family, Glen got into his father's music by osmosis. He frequently travelled to his grandfather's house in Placentia with his father and mother; he remembers the parties there with the older folks belting out old songs. Like most young people, Glen would roll his eyes at it all. It wasn't until Glen went away that he realized there was something to the music his father played. On his trips back to Newfoundland he began sitting down with Vince, and started to learn the melodies to the tunes, often taping them and bringing them back to Nova Scotia. The two of them were filmed and recorded for CBC's performance hour. It was around this time that Glen envisioned taking another step. He started thinking seriously about putting together a professional CD of his father's accordion music.

Vince and his family spent a lot of time at their cabin on the Placentia junction. There was music here too, of course. People in the area often got together and sang country- western songs and played a few accordion tunes. Vince related one particularly amusing instance. He and some friends were playing a few tunes in a little boat on the pond. For a laugh, they started playing on a CB radio channel, so the people in the cabins could listen to them. A trucker from the US picked up the show, and after a while spoke up and said "Man, that's some good music. Let's have some more of that!"

Vince has hundreds of tunes in his repertoire, far too many to recall on the spot. One evening, as he was waiting for his supper to cook, his wife suggested that he start writing down all the tunes he knew. Together they wrote down every single, double, triple, waltzes, ceilis, and any tune they could think of. The ones Vince couldn't recall, Dorothy would sing. By the end of it, they had a list of 402 tunes. In 1998 Vince and Glen started getting material together for the CD. Vince went to work at "fixing up some of the old tunes." Things came to a halt when Dorothy Collins got sick and later passed away. A year later, Vince and Glen decided they could continue, and would dedicate the CD to Dot, who was an avid supporter of their music.

Some of the tunes were left alone for the CD, but others Vince and Glen practiced and dressed up slightly until they had it to their liking. "I had to put some more notes in them" Vince explained. "Now, I didn't want to put too much in them because I didn't want to spoil them. Most of them I just let them go the way they were." Glen went to work trying new things on the accompaniment side, such as experimenting with jazz chords and other techniques. Of the tunes themselves, Vince describes them as "old fashioned…bay stuff, mostly our bay. Well, I suppose Fortune Bay and every bay. But then every place would have them a little different anyway. They're all the same tune but they're played differently where we learned them by ear. If you're reading it, then notes are notes and that's it!"

The CD, set to be released in July 2002, includes a blend of old-fashioned square dance tunes, some original tunes, and some of Vince's favourites. Vince and Glen Collins can be seen occasionally at Folk Club, and they will be performed Saturday, August 3rd at the festival. It was a pleasure to become better acquainted with them. Hopefully, we'll be seeing a little more of them around town.

This is Vince's version of a popular reel played for square dances. His father used to play a different version of the tune. Figgy Duff recorded yet another version under the title, "The Blackthorn Stick".